Drawing emotional lines
Over the past few months I have been thinking about feelings and passion, and I have noticed how difficult it is for me to name them. Well, there’s a big part of the problem right there. By deciding to “name them”, I’ve been limiting myself to just using words.
A fellow blogger ‘amberfireinus’ (amber - I don’t have your blog address!) posted a comment a few days ago that has opened up a wonderful new way forward for me in identifying my feelings and passions … draw them!
I’m an engineer by training so I live in a rather analytical and prescriptive world where everything is clearly defined and delineated. What a wonderful “discovery” to just draw something freehand! It is very flexible, as I can draw a situation in terms of relationships, or time, or difficulty, or whatever I want - even better, whatever I feel! Drawing allows me to express intensely private and complex emotions with the simple stroke of a pen.
I feel like a little kid with a new new toy for Christmas!
Does this make sense to anyone else but me?
Thank you amber!
January 16, 2008 at 11:51 am
Makes perfect sense to me!!
I read a really interesting book years ago (can’t remember what it’s called now) that was a personal programme for helping to identify and heal emotional issues through drawing. It was fascinating.
January 17, 2008 at 11:16 am
*giggling* In case you aren’t aware of it, my 1st discipline was Engineering, too. {Hugs.}
And in case you might have missed it, (I really can be a prodigious poster), here’s one of the doodles I came up up doing the same thing…
http://sueannedwards.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/quintessence/
January 17, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Just a quick note that this idea really worked for me today! I have been worrying about a problem wit ha project at work for a while now, so I drew how I felt about it. My drawing ended up being a simple single-line square with a small solid line cutting across one edge, like a thorn or a prickle sticking in. I know this sounds dumb, but that exercise helped me to see that in fact almost all of the project was already done and working, but there was just this one little part that was causing all the trouble. Rather like a little prickle in your foot that upsets your whole body. So this morning I sat down and identified what that thorn was (in this case it was some project documentation that was incomplete) and simply resolved to complete this part before doing anything else. At the end of the day the documentation was done, and the project felt like a complete square with no more thorn. Well, there you have it folks.
January 20, 2008 at 4:20 am
Hello jonfeatherstone, I followed a link from Sueann’s place to here, and wished to make a comment on this entry:). I thought it such good advice of amberfireinus to give you. I find myself sketching sometimes as well, mostly when I am thinking about something that I feel I need understanding of and when I look back on it sometimes I see things I did not see before. It is a very good thing to do I think